NHER 35400 (Building record) - Cold War Royal Observer Corps monitoring post

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Summary

A Cold War Royal Observer Corps monitoring post has been recorded on the ground as a group of surviving structures. Some of these structures, together with an overgrown area broadly covering the extent of the site, are visible on aerial photographs taken from the 1970s onwards. The most recent consulted imagery, from 2023, shows an Orlit ‘B’ post still surviving as an extant structure.

Protected Status/Designation

  • None recorded

Location

Map sheet TF73NE
Civil Parish DOCKING, WEST NORFOLK, NORFOLK

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Royal observer corps post.
Open 1961, closed October 1968.
Intact but empty and overgrown.
Orlit B nearby retains wooden shelves.
See (S1).
E. Rose (NLA) July 2000.

September 2025. Northwest Norfolk Aerial Investigation and Mapping (AI&M) Project.
The Cold War Royal Observer Corps monitoring post described above is visible as structures and an area of overgrown vegetation on aerial photographs taken from the 1970s onwards (S2-S4). Some poorly defined earthworks are visible on visualised lidar data (S5) but it is not clear to what extent these relate to the ROC site. Only the Orlit ‘B’ structure is clearly visible on the aerial sources, and this is the only element that has been mapped individually by the project (the area of overgrown vegetation has been mapped by extent); it remains visible as an extant structure on the most recent consulted aerial photographs (S4), taken in 2023.
S. Tremlett (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 4 September 2025.

  • <S1> Article in Serial: Catford, N. 1999. Royal Observer Corps Underground Posts in Norfolk. Norfolk Industrial Archaeology Society Journal. Vol 6, No 4, pp 59-70. pp 59ff.
  • <S2> Vertical Aerial Photograph: Various. Various. Vertical Aerial Photography from the Historic England Archive. OS/72169 V 027-028 16-JUN-1972.
  • <S3> Vertical Aerial Photograph: Bluesky International Ltd and Getmapping Plc. unknown. Aerial Photography for Great Britain (APGB) Orthophotographs. https://www.apgb.co.uk. Bluesky International Ltd APGB Imagery TF7536 10-JUL-2022.
  • <S4> Vertical Aerial Photograph: Google Earth. ? - present. Google Earth Orthophotographs. https://earth.google.com/web. 25-JUN-2023 Accessed 04-SEP-2025.
  • <S5> LIDAR Airborne Survey: Environment Agency. Environment Agency LIDAR Data. National LIDAR Programme TF73NE DTM 1m 13-NOV-2018.

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Record last edited

Sep 4 2025 4:49PM

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